Thursday, June 01, 2023

Washington Post Exposes Israeli Occupation Crimes in Investigative Report

The Washington Post released a report on Friday which uncovered Israeli occupation forces deliberately slaying Palestinian civilians, including minors, in the guise of "secret missions."
M.Y | DOP - 

The Washington Post released a report on Friday which uncovered Israeli occupation forces deliberately slaying Palestinian civilians, including minors, in the guise of “secret missions.”

For many years, nighttime raids and arrests featured heavily in the lives of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank. However, since the rise to power of the most right-wing government in Israeli history, there has been a notable uptick in daytime raids conducted in crowded areas such as Jenin.

The Washington Post compiled 15 videos related to the violent Israeli raid in Jenin on March 16, causing the deaths of four Palestinians – Nidal Khazem, Yousef Shreim, Omar Awadin, and Louay Al-Saghir. Internal video recordings from local stores near the incident were obtained to reenact the attack, and nine eyewitnesses were surveyed with four more providing testimonies to construct the event using three-dimensional imaging.

A number of experts informed the American newspaper that the Israeli intrusion into Jenin on March 16 transgressed the worldwide illegality on extrajudicial executions.

This violation is made worse because the ones that the Israeli occupation deemed to be armed did not pose a danger to the Israeli forces during the assassination, coupled with the presence of numerous innocent people in the area.

According to Philip Alston, the former U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, after analyzing the evidence given by The Washington Post, it is possible to conclude with certainty that the incident constituted extrajudicial executions.

Alston stated that the situation was further exacerbated by the use of deadly shots even after the two Palestinians had been neutralized.

Michael Lynk, former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said these particular killings were “profoundly unlawful” under international standards. He added that the unlawfulness was “heightened by the apparent choice to conduct these targeted killings in a busy civilian market.”

Lynk observed that neither of the two young men who were the focus of the raid showed any signs of posing a danger at that moment in time, not even any sort of imminent danger, and they likely could have been detained.

Michael Sfard, a human rights lawyer who has previously challenged the legality of Israel’s assassinations in Israel’s Supreme Court, described the Jenin raid as extremely typical of how Israel conducts its lethal-force operations.


Washington Post publishes an investigation exposing crimes of Zionist enemy
Washington Post publishes an investigation exposing crimes of Zionist enemy
Washington Post publishes an investigation exposing crimes of Zionist enemy
[27/May/2023]


WASHINGTON May 27. 2023 (Saba) - On Friday, the Washington Post published an investigation of Zionist special forces directly targeting Palestinian citizens "Al-Musta'rebon" by killing them, especially those involving children.
Zionist intrusions have long been an essential component of life in the occupied West Bank, but they have often occurred at night, usually ending in arrests, but this year, under the most right-wing government in the occupying entity's history, an increasing number of intrusions were carried out during the day in densely populated areas such as Jenin.
The newspaper synchronized 15 videos of the Zionist bloody incursion into the city of Jenin on the day of March 16, which led to the martyrdom of four Palestinians, Nidal Khazem, Yousef Shrem, Omar Awadin and Luai al-Saghir, the investigation obtained video footage from CCTV from shops adjacent to the Zionist special forces' entry point.
The newspaper spoke to nine witnesses and obtained testimony from four others to reproduce the intrusion with a three-dimensional system.
The newspaper quoted a number of experts that spoke to: "The Zionist intrusion into the city of Jenin on the day of March 16 is a violation of the international ban on extrajudicial killings, and this violation is aggravated by the fact that the occupation entity claimed to be armed did not pose any threat to the Zionist forces at the time of the assassination, along with the presence of many civilians in the place.
"One can say with some confidence that these are extrajudicial executions," former United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Philip Alston told The Washington Post after reviewing the evidence presented by the newspaper.
It was then compounded by more fatal shots, even after the neutralization of the two people, "Alston added. According to his expression.
For his part, former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Michael Lynk said: "These killings are highly illegal under international standards, and what increases their illegality is the choice to carry out the assassinations in a clearly crowded civilian market."
Lynk pointed out that neither of the two young people targeted "appeared to represent any threat, not even an imminent threat, and could have been arrested".
Michael Sfard, a human rights lawyer who has previously challenged the legality of assassinations carried out by the occupying entity in its Supreme Court, described the intrusion into Jenin as "an ideal model for how Israel can carry out operations involving lethal force".
E.M


The Guardian: Study Unearths 3 Mass Graves in Massacred Tantura Village

An investigation by "The Guardian" has uncovered three possible mass graves underneath the wreckage of the coastal village of Tantura in the Haifa area, which was annihilated during the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948.
M.Y | DOP - 

An investigation has uncovered three possible mass graves underneath the wreckage of the coastal village of Tantura in the Haifa area, which was annihilated during the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948.

Researchers and historians, according to The Guardian, reported that a massacre conducted by Zionist gangs resulted in the death of many Palestinians who resided in the village that contained around 1500 people. Strikingly, Israeli beach resorts now sit atop the mass graves that linger as a reminder of the tragedy.

The newspaper said that a car park at one of the holiday destinations had been constructed over some mass graves.

The “Forensic Architecture” research agency has supplied experts to lead the new investigation, as reported by “the Guardian.”

The newspaper studied mapping information and aerial photographs from the British Mandate period, as well as testimonies recently gathered from both survivors and those responsible for the events and data from the Israeli occupation forces.

The data obtained was utilized to construct three-dimensional diagrams that pinpointed potential sites for murder and mass burials, the limits of cemetery grounds that had been present before, and if any gravesites were unearthed or taken away.

Just recently, the International Center for Justice for Palestinians hosted a showing of a documentary on the Tantura massacre at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in London.

The movie centers around an Israeli scholar’s recording of the bloody events in the town of Tantura in Haifa after the 1948 Nakba, as well as the resultant prosecution and torment that caused him to lose his academic title at the end of the 1990s.


Settler attacks on Palestinians in West Bank leave man in critical condition and draw US condemnation  ABOUT TIME

By Abeer Salman and Hadas Gold, CNN
 Sat May 27, 2023

Israeli police take security measures at the town of Mugayyir in Ramallah, West Bank on May 26, 2023.
Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

JerusalemCNN —

Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank Friday left a man in critical condition and drew international condemnation, including from the US.

Settlers on Friday attacked local farmers and set cars and farms alight near the villages of Turmosayia and Al Mughayyer north of Ramallah, eyewitnesses told CNN and local journalists.

One man remains in critical condition in the hospital on Saturday, having been shot in the head, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Eight others were injured.

“We are deeply concerned by the rising trend of extremist settler violence, including reports of attacks against Palestinians in homes and farms in which they have lived for decades,” the US State Department said in a statement. “We unequivocally condemn all acts of extremist violence, whether Israeli or Palestinian.”


Israeli soldiers stand next to a car, reportedly burnt by Israeli settlers, in the village of Al-Mughayer, east of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on May 26, 2023.
Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

In a statement to CNN, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) – which enforces security in the Israeli-occupied West Bank – acknowledged that Palestinian cars were set alight and said Israeli security forces attempted to disperse “the confrontation.”

But the IDF also blamed both sides for the incident and said both Israelis and Palestinians were injured. “A violent confrontation was instigated in the Shilo Valley, involving Palestinians and Israeli civilians,” the IDF said. “The confrontation involved mutual stone-hurling and Israeli civilians firing into the air.”

Speaking with Israeli Army Radio, an unnamed Israeli security official said that the Israeli government would work to bring the perpetrators “to justice.”

“These are a handful of criminals who are agitating the area, harming security and bringing a bad name to the entire settlement in Judea and Samaria,” the official said, using the biblical name that some Israeli Jews use to refer to the West Bank.

The European Union diplomatic mission to the Palestinians called on the Israeli government to “take decisive steps to ensure accountability and protect the Palestinian civilian population.”

The US State Department also condemned a reported attempted stabbing Friday of an Israeli in a settlement south of Hebron, also in the West Bank. The alleged assailant in that incident, 28-year-old Alaa Khalil Qaisiyah, was shot dead.

CHUTZPAH

Pictures| IOF Force Palestinian Family to Demolish Their House, Pay Fine

Pictures| IOF Force Palestinian Family to Demolish Their House, Pay fine
M.S | DOP - 

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) forced Saturday, May 27, 2023, a Palestinian family to self-demolish a part of their home in occupied Jerusalem and pay a fine.

Local Palestinian sources reported that Israeli forces forced the Jeruslamite Shaludi family to demolish the roof of the kitchen in their house and pay a fine of 5,000 shekels (1350$).



Settlers burn Palestinian village, deliver Israel’s arsonist agenda


Maureen Clare Murphy 

The Electronic Intifada

27 May 2023   

A broken window at a home in Burqa village, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, after it was attacked by settlers, 25 May. Mohammed NasserAPA images

spike in fatalities, increased settler attacks against Palestinian communities, moves to further restrict the political rights of Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, a revival of the assassination of Palestinian faction leaders: five months into its existence, Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, however fragile and fractious, is delivering on its hard-line agenda.

None of these policies are new, of course. But with Israel’s most openly extremist government yet, and third states providing for an environment of near total impunity, the situation on the ground for Palestinians has become ever more dangerous.

This week, the Israeli government passed a budget that, in the words of Al Jazeera, “solidifies the ruling coalition’s religious, pro-settlement agenda” for the next two years.

After weeks of negotiations, the budget was passed after a promise of $68 million was made to Itamar Ben-Gvir’s extreme-right Jewish Power party for settlements in the Naqab and Galilee regions – areas in Israel populated by Palestinians.

As the Associated Press reports, the budget also allocates “nearly $4 billion in discretionary funds, much of it for ultra-Orthodox and pro-settler parties.”

This will allow “hard-line pro-settler parties to promote pet projects through the ministries they control.”

It emboldens figures like Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, who has ordered the government to prepare for the doubling of the number of settlers in the West Bank, presenting his plans as a “core mission” for the present government.


Settlers set fire to village

On Thursday, settlers in the northern West Bank began leveling land ahead of construction in Homesh, an outpost near the northern West Bank city of Nablus built on privately owned land belonging to Palestinians in Burqa village.

The land leveling commenced one day after settlers accompanied by soldiers invaded Burqa, burning several homes. The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said on Thursday that the groundwork “is the direct result of the pogrom that took place yesterday … yet again, a clear example of a criminal government serving the settlers.”
 


Earlier on Wednesday, diplomats visited Burqa to “learn about the injustice and danger the villagers face at the hands of violent settlers from Homesh,” according to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. The attack on Burqa following the diplomats’ visit was seen as a reprisal by Homesh settlers who have enacted violence against nearby Palestinian communities for years.

Such visits, led by the European Union, have become a ritual in which diplomats stage photo-ops feigning solidarity with Palestinians while their governments continue to offer Israel unconditional support and political cover for its crimes.

As the latest visit to Burqa underscores, these visits do absolutely nothing to protect Palestinians.

Violent friction


Homesh, first built as a military base on land belonging to Palestinians in Burqa in 1978, was evacuated in 2005 as part of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.

As Oren Ziv writes for +972 Magazine, “the Israeli logic behind originally dismantling Homesh … was that it was an isolated community surrounded by Palestinian villages and cities which required more resources than it was strategically worth.”

Despite the withdrawal nearly 20 years ago, settlers maintained a presence at the outpost, causing violent friction between Palestinians and Israeli settlers.

Ziv adds that between 2017 and 2021, the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, which petitioned Israel’s high court on behalf of Palestinian residents, “documented 27 settler attacks in the Homesh area, including both physical bodily violence and property damage.”

In August 2021, settlers from Homesh abducted and tortured a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, hitting him with their car and tying him to the vehicle before beating him and roping him to a tree in an isolated area, where they “sprayed him with pepper spray, electrocuted him, and then burned him with the car’s cigarette lighter,” according to +972 Magazine.

Rampaging settlers terrorized Qaryut, a nearby Palestinian village, after a settler was shot and killed in late 2021 while driving away from a religious school that continued to operate in Homesh.

Palestinians in communities near Homesh have also been killed and injured by the Israeli military. In March 2022, Ahmad Hikmat Seif, 23, succumbed to injuries sustained during a protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Burqa.

Dozens of Palestinians were injured by rubber-coated bullets and tear gas fired by the military in April last year, when thousands of Jews, including several Israeli lawmakers, among them Smotrich, marched to Homesh.

The Tel Aviv daily Haaretz notes that following the killing of the settler in late 2021, Homesh “effectively [became] a fortified army base,” with some 80 soldiers guarding 30 settlers.

In March this year, Israel’s parliament paved the way to formally recognize Homesh, along with several other outposts, despite opposition by the Biden administration in Washington, which says that a settlement at the site between Nablus and Jenin would prevent a contiguous Palestinian state.

Israel insists that it is moving Homesh from private land to what it says is state land – in other words, land that is de facto annexed in violation of international law. Israeli officials admitted to their US counterparts that the move “was in response to domestic political constraints and to prevent Netanyahu’s radical right-wing coalition partners from destabilizing the government,” the online publication Axios reported.

Haaretz observes that the supposedly “state-owned plots are not contiguous and surrounded by Palestinian-owned land.”

Thus, even if the Homesh religious school “is moved to state-owned land, the Palestinians are not expected to be able to get access to their land” and the relocation “would risk greater friction between the two sides than has been the case so far.”

Farmers attacked near Ramallah


Following their ineffectual visit, European diplomats condemned the settler attack on Burqa this week, as well as a similar assault on Palestinian farmers near Ramallah on Friday.

During Friday’s attack, a Palestinian man was shot in the head and seriously injured, according to WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency.

Under the protection of Israeli troops, settlers burned several vehicles belonging to farmers as well as 270 bales of hay.


The United Nations meanwhile protested the forced evacuation of the Palestinian herding community of Ein Samiya near Ramallah.

“These families are not leaving by choice; the Israeli authorities have repeatedly demolished homes and other structures they own and have threatened to destroy their only school,” Yvonne Helle, the UN’s acting humanitarian coordinator for the West Bank and Gaza, said on Thursday.

“At the same time, land available for the grazing of livestock has decreased due to settlement expansion and both children and adults have been subjected to settler violence,” Helle added.

“We are witnessing the tragic consequences of long standing Israeli practices and settler violence.”

Nearly 30 Palestinian families left the rural village, their home for more than 40 years, “after months of escalating Israeli violence,” Basel Adra reported for +972 Magazine.

“Residents say they were compelled to leave after a fierce spate of violence over the previous five days, during which settlers attacked them at night, blocked the roads to the village, and threw stones at the old homes,” according to Adra.

“The mental toll of the attacks, especially on the children, was the decisive factor in the residents’ choice to destroy the village and move away.”

While worsened in recent days, settler harassment and physical violence against Palestinians in Ein Samiya predates the current Israeli government.

“Before this, settlers would come at night, parking their cars at the entrance to the village. They blocked us from getting in or out, and they beat anyone who walked on the road,” Hazem Ka’abneh, a resident of Ein Samiya, told +972 Magazine.

Israel denied residents building permits and destroyed homes when villagers would construct them anyways. Palestinians in Ein Samiya were not connected to basic services like water and electricity, unlike Jews living in nearby settlement outposts unauthorized by the Israeli government.

As Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, stated on Thursday, the West Bank “continues to be vandalized, torched, robbed inch by inch, its people brutalized day after day.”

And the arsonists heading the Israeli government are fueling the fire, working in tandem with the settlers to push Palestinians off of their land.
Hostile ideologies: Hindutva and Zionism march hand in hand

Shir Hever
26 May 2023   

Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel by Azad Essa, Pluto Press (2023).

India has become the largest importer of Israeli weapons in the second decade of the 21st century. The world’s largest democracy and a symbol of anti-colonial resistance has turned into a key ally of the Israeli settler-colonial apartheid regime. Journalist Azad Essa traces this transformation through an analysis of the deep changes that have swept India and that have made it turn against Palestine and Palestinian rights.

Vijay Prashad’s book Namaste Sharon, from 2003, had set to address this very matter before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s time, focusing on the love affair between India and Ariel Sharon, one of the biggest war criminals in Israeli history. Though Prashad’s book was groundbreaking at the time – despite some inaccuracies regarding the Israeli side (and his choice of defining Israel’s colonial ideology as “Sharonism”) – it had been in urgent need of an update to cover India’s new political developments: the gradual rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power, especially after winning the most parliamentary seats in 1996; Modi’s election to prime minister in 2014; and the annexation of Kashmir and Jammu in 2019.

Azad Essa’s book is exactly this much-needed update.

Essa, unlike Prashad, focuses his attention on India and the rise of the Islamophobic Hindutva ideology, as well as the geopolitical configuration that drove India to reconsider its position on Palestine.

Essa gets a couple of facts wrong here and there about Palestine, the Nakba and Israel, but his book is not intended as a resource to learn about Israeli colonialism and apartheid. He assumes a great deal of knowledge by readers on the topic already and focuses instead on the Indian side, which is rarely covered by books on Palestine. Next to countless books on US and European complicity with Israeli crimes, a book that sheds light on India’s interests in allying with Israel is very important.

Because of Essa’s focus on Indian politics, he sadly misses the chance to investigate the reasons why the Israeli government has courted India as an ally. Israel’s attitude toward India is conflicted, something that is not highlighted in the book. For example, Israeli arms companies have complained about the Indian requirement that arms deals take the form of technology transfer, with production lines established in India. They bemoan that Indian forces routinely reject training by Israeli “security experts,” which is crucial to the business model of many of Israel’s arms companies.

It would be very interesting if the author had reported on the notorious 2009 promotional video by Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael, spoofing a Bollywood song and dance scene. The video should have offended the Indian military brass, but somehow it didn’t sabotage Israel’s arms exports to India.

Another point sorely missing from the book is a discussion of corruption. Essa makes an offhand mention of corruption scandals tied to India’s arms deals with Israel, but does not cover the scandals themselves. We hear nothing about the type and extent of bribes paid and how India once blacklisted the state-owned Israel Military Industries (IMI), which was later purchased by Elbit Systems, for bribing an Indian business executive. IMI (now known as IMI Systems) was only removed from the blacklist following quiet lobby efforts by the Israeli government.

Another issue missing from the book is how Israeli politicians consider India to be an alternative market to Europe and a way to avoid the impact of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

In 2013, as the Israeli government panicked about EU guidelines on financing Israeli projects in settlements, Naftali Bennett, Israel’s economy minister at the time, traveled to India, claiming that Israeli agricultural expertise had shepherded in a new boom crop of cucumbers in India.

The high point of the book is the comparison of the Indian rule of Kashmir with the Israeli occupation regime in the West Bank and Gaza. The story of Sandeep Chakravorty, the Indian consul general in New York who explained on the record in 2019 that India would use Israel as a “model” for its own policy in Kashmir, is shocking. So is the mass blinding of hundreds of Kashmiris by pellet guns – a so-called non-lethal tactic seemingly straight from the playbook of Israeli occupation forces in East Jerusalem.

Beyond the shock value of these stories, however, the book offers a deep analysis and understanding of how the values of freedom and equality, which were once so strongly tied to India’s anti-colonial heritage, have eroded. This erosion has taken place through the Indian government’s othering of Muslims and its right-wing populism, which, at times, becomes unabashed admiration of fascism by the RSS – a Hindu nationalist paramilitary organization – and its vigilante violence, which catapulted Narendra Modi to power.

Azad Essa finds the root of the decline in India’s democratic and anti-colonial values in Indira Gandhi’s state of emergency in 1975. Although she was the leader of the Congress party and a friend to Yasser Arafat, utilizing fear to crack down on freedoms is a door that, once opened, is very difficult to close again.

Dr. Shir Hever is the military embargo coordinator of the Palestinian BNC (Boycott National Committee) of the BDS Movement

SEE 

West Africa: Trafficking in the Sahel - Killer Cough Syrup and Fake Medicine

Facebook

27 MAY 2023

In the summer of 2022, 70 Gambian babies and young children died from kidney failure after ingesting cough syrup spooned out by their caregivers. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global alert that four tainted paediatric products had originated in India, as local health authorities continue to investigate how this tragedy unfolded.

This feature, which focuses on the illegal trade in substandard and fake medicines, is part of a UN News series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel.

From ineffective hand sanitizer to fake antimalarial pills, an illicit trade that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is being meticulously dismantled by the UN and partner countries in Africa's Sahel region.

Substandard or fake medicines, like contraband baby cough syrup, are killing almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, according to a threat assessment report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The report explains how nations in the Sahel, a 6,000-kilometre-wide swath stretching from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, which is home to 300 million people, are joining forces to stop fake medicines at their borders and hold the perpetrators accountable.

This fight is taking place as Sahelians face unprecedented strife: more than 2.9 million people have been displaced by conflict and violence, with armed groups launching attacks that have already shuttered 11,000 schools and 7,000 health centres.

Deadly supply meets desperate demand

Health care is scarce in the region, which has among the world's highest incidence of malaria and where infectious diseases are one of the leading causes of death.

"This disparity between the supply of and demand for medical care is at least partly filled by medicines supplied from the illegal market to treat self-diagnosed diseases or symptoms," the report says, explaining that street markets and unauthorized sellers, especially in rural or conflict-affected areas, are sometimes the only sources of medicines and pharmaceutical products.

Fake treatments with fatal results

The study shows that the cost of the illegal medicine trade is high, in terms of health care and human lives.

Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Nearly 170,000 sub-Saharan African children die every year from unauthorized antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia.

Caring for people who have used falsified or substandard medical products for malaria treatment in sub-Saharan Africa costs up to $44.7 million every year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.

Motley trafficking

Corruption is one of the main reasons that the trade is allowed to flourish.

About 40 per cent of substandard and falsified medical products reported in Sahelian countries between 2013 and 2021 land in the regulated supply chain, the report showed. Products diverted from the legal supply chain typically come from such exporting nations as Belgium, China, France, and India. Some end up on pharmacy shelves.

The perpetrators are employees of pharmaceutical companies, public officials, law enforcement officers, health agency workers and street vendors, all motivated by potential financial gain, the report found.

Traffickers are finding ever more sophisticated routes, from working with pharmacists to taking their crimes online, according to a UNODC research brief on the issue.

While terrorist groups and non-State armed groups are commonly associated with trafficking in medical products in the Sahel, this mainly revolves around consuming medicines or levying "taxes" on shipments in areas under their control.

Snip supply, meet demand

Efforts are under way to adopt a regional approach to the problem, involving every nation in the region. For example, all Sahel countries except Mauritania have ratified a treaty to establish an African medicines agency, and the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization initiative, launched by the African Union in 2009, aims at improving access to safe, affordable medicine.

All the Sahel countries have legal provisions in place relating to trafficking in medical products, but some laws are outdated, UNODC findings showed. The agency recommended, among other things, revised legislation alongside enhanced coordination among stakeholders.

States taking action

Law enforcement and judicial efforts that safeguard the legal supply chain should be a priority, said UNODC, pointing to the seizure of some 605 tonnes of fake medicines between 2017 to 2021 by authorities in the region.

Operation Pangea, for example, coordinated by UN partner INTERPOL in 90 countries, targeted online sales of pharmaceutical products. Results saw seizures of unauthorized antivirals rise by 18 per cent and unauthorized chloroquine, to treat malaria, by 100 per cent.

"Transnational organized crime groups take advantage of gaps in national regulation and oversight to peddle substandard and falsified medical products," UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said. "We need to help countries increase cooperation to close gaps, build law enforcement and criminal justice capacity, and drive public awareness to keep people safe."

UN in action